Fated [Hardcover]

After seeing very average reviews for this book, I didn't have high hopes. It had a gorgeous cover, an interesting plot, and I like the author. After reading this book, I decided that it was indeed a good story, just not GREAT like it could have been.

Daire:

Daire (how on earth do you pronounce that?) is the main character in the story. She isn't a very likeable character to most. Besides the fact that she nearly gave up her virginity at age 15 to a fling only because of hormones, I really identified with her (okay, I'm a prude so that was a huge WOAH thing for me.) A lot of people complained about how she treated her mother, but as a 19-year-old girl who struggled heavily in her relationship with her mother for her entire adolescence, I can understand Daire's severe frustration and pent-up anger. Hey, we're teenagers - don't judge us. Her relationship with Dace went way too fast in my opinion, but that's a common issue in teen novels so whatever. I think most readers will find Daire to be quite abrasive and annoying. I actually enjoyed her for the most part, but she isn't a character that will stand out among fiction. But her powers are pretty epic.

Dace:

Good twin, evil twin...a bit overdone, but interesting. Dace was...okay. Kind of boring and flat. It kind of seemed like looks was all he had. But he and Daire are pretty perfect for each other, I guess. The romance wasn't the strong part of the story but it wasn't the weak part either.

There were some very interesting, unique aspects to the plot but it took quite a while for the action to start. I'm definitely giving this series a chance, although it won't be one of my favourites. If you like The Immortals, you'll probably like this.

Warning: there is no sex in this book, but there ALMOST was about three times. One of the times, Daire is only 15 and she's just in a casual relationship with this celebrity guy. A freaky vision caused her to panic before she had the chance to lose her virginity to him. Daire and Dace get close once or twice but are interrupted. Daire seems like a very hormonal 15 and 16 year old girl. Like I said, no sex in *this* book, but the romance was still a bit much for a girl Daire's age.

Cover:
I love the ravens on the cover plus the fact that they have a shiny quality to them. Throughout the book there are bursts of ravens in the beginning and I loved these little illustrations.

Writing:
The book was written in the first person present tense. I thought the writing was awkward and so it was hard to get into the story.

Setting:
Daire is sent by her mother to live with her grandmother in the small town of Enchantment, New Mexico. I definitely enjoyed the setting of this small town with the characters' names, the adobe houses and the culture. I also enjoyed the idea that there are three worlds, the Upperworld, the Middleworld (our world) and the Lowerworld and within these worlds there are many dimensions. In the story it is said everyone has an animal guide but never find them so it was interesting to see all the characters' animal guides in the book. Guess what Daire's is?

Plot:
The book was slow. Very slow. It took about halfway for me to finally get into it and I doubt that a lot of people will have the patience for that so be warned. The pacing was my biggest problem with this book. When Daire starts having hallucinations, all the doctors says she has a mental issue and needs to be detained, her long-lost grandmother says that she will be able to help and so Daire is sent to Enchantment. When her grandmother starts telling her that she is not crazy, that she has gifts and is a Seeker (a being who can travel between worlds) Daire then gets it in her head to run away. This was basically half of the book and as I said it was slow as well as boring and tedious. Though I admit that after the first half the story finally started coming into place.

Main Character:
As a character, there is nothing to say about Daire really. She wasn't annoying but she didn't have any quality that really made her memorable or stand out as a character - I mean personality wise. Although I did like the fact that her mother was a big time makeup artist so they moved around a lot to shoots and she has traveled all over the world but doesn't have a permanent home. It was also interesting to note that her mother Jennika had her when she was a teenager and their relationship because of this. Sure her past was pretty interesting but as a character Daire was kinda boring.

Villain:
The antagonist in the story was the El Coyote a family of sorcerers who are basically power hungry and have had a long time war with the Seekers who have always moved against them. The main antagonist from the family is Cade (more on him in the next section).

Other Characters:
The main two side characters are the twins Dace and Cade (well technically he's the antagonist) don't want to really spoil so I'll just say one twin was born with darkness and one was born pure. So one is evil and one is good. Characters like this are either flat or have the potential to be flat later on. Dace was pretty boring and Cade, the evil one, wasn't as boring, but as a villain his whole wanting-to-take-over-the world-because-he's-a-power-crazy-psycho is tad bit overused and I really can see this going badly later on in the series. We can't relate to either character nor did they inspire me to have any feelings for them which = flat and 2-dimensial. I did really like Jennika, Daire's mother though and also the fact that the Queen Bee Lita, wasn't as stereotypical as she first appeared to be. Daire's grandmother, another important character, was wise and knowledgeable and though I enjoyed her as a character she still came off as cliche.

Romance:
Daire starts having dreams of Dace early on and it's said that they are meant for each other, Fated as the book title implies. The romance wasn't so bad but since both characters aren't that great I can see it becoming tedious in the future.

Other Comments:
I have read Noël's The Immortals series (although I only read the first two books) and from what I can see I enjoyed that far more than Fated.

Overall:
I didn't enjoy Fated as much as I could have since the main characters were flat and the pacing in the beginning was far too slow. But if you want read about a small town full of magic, a girl destined to keep the balance and if you enjoyed Noël's The Immortals series then Fated might be for you.

A few years ago I read the first few books in Alyson's "The Immortals" series, while I enjoyed the first book or so, I found myself becoming less and less enchanted by the series with each passing book- in all honesty I stopped reading the series after the third or fourth book as I found myself growing increasingly frustrated with the main character Ever, a storyline which became increasingly convoluted with each passing page, and the likes of. Since then I have admittedly given little thought to her "The Immortals" series, however, when I saw that Alyson was releasing a new series with this book, "Fated", being its first book, I jumped at the chance to read and review it and I am glad that I did as I very much enjoyed this book. In fact, I personally believe this book to be Alyson's strongest to date.

While reading this book it became evident that Alyson is quite knowledgeable about the topic of Native American believes and practices such as spirit animals, vision quests, and the likes of- that she did a fair amount of research into said topics when writing this book. Though what is perhaps best about her knowledge about said topics is that she was able to convey it to the reader quite subtly- not once while reading this book did I ever feel like I was experiencing an 'information dump', being overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information on a topic I was admittedly quite unfamiliar with being thrown my way.

One of my most favourite parts of this book was the prose- typically I am not one to notice something such as this as I read a book, but I couldn't not notice it as I read this book, especially in the first few chapters when Daire, the main character, was describing Morocco. For instance, "There are moments in life when everything pauses. The earth hesitates, the atmosphere stills, and time shrinks and folds onto itself until it collapses into a big tired heap" (pg. 1).

Another part of the book which I very much enjoyed was secondary characters Xotichl's and Auden's relationship- it was perchance one of the cutest and most SQUEE-worthy relationships I have read in a fair while. A smile literally bloomed on my face whenever I read about them, especially during the following part:

"Music and Xotichl- that's my life- it's all I need." He lifts his hand from the wheel, pulls her closer until their shoulders bump together.
"It's all true except for the last part. He loves music more than me," Xotichl says, squealing with delight when he leans in to kiss her, the sudden move causing the car to swerve slightly out of the lane before Auden rights it again.
"Never! You know it's now true, take it back!" he says' (pg. 166).

That being said, one of my largest complaints about this book was Dace- I personally found him to be quite underdeveloped and flat when compared to his twin brother Cade- I know who Cade is/ what sort of person he is/ what sort of evils he is capable of committing, but I am not quite sure exactly who Dace is.

All in all, I believe this to be Alyson's strongest book to date and I look forward to the next books in the series, "Echo", "Mystic" and "Horizon" (which I believe are going to be released every 6 months)- Hopefully we can see more of Auden and Xotichl and delve deeper into Dace's character (especially his role as the Echo)!